Polymer-Based Flexible Visuo-Haptic Display

We report a flexible visuo-haptic display that allows for interactive haptic feedback on the visual display. The visuo-haptic display is fabricated by integrating a dielectric elastomer (DE) based thin film actuator array into a flexible display and pressure sensors. The DE actuator array consists of nine active cells, which generate thickness-mode deformation in response to voltage signal. The flexible display presents images of the aligned three alphabet characters at each section in 3 × 3 matrix during light propagation via optical multiwaveguide. The pressure sensors are placed on the bottom of the DE actuator array for haptic feedback. The performance of the DE actuators is proved to be capable of realizing sufficient vibro-tactile sensation in the perceivable range of human touch sense. The integrated system enables the visual display to provide interactive haptic feedback such as key pressing, contact vibration sensations, etc., in accordance with user input.